“If the leader of the free world can get this, I think it’s kind of silly for the rest of us to pretend a $3 handkerchief from Walmart is going to protect us,” said Brian Westrate, the Wisconsin Republican Party treasurer who believes the coronavirus is a real threat and complies with a statewide mask mandate but is a “skeptic of the societal response.”…

“If this virus can get into the Oval, into the body of the president, there’s no place where it could not possibly infect one of our fellow Americans,” Gaetz said Friday night on Fox News, calling on the country to fully open as it protects those most vulnerable. “There is no lockdown that can be a panacea to save everyone from everything, and this is proof positive that’s the case.”…

“I think it’s just kind of in the air, you know — you’re going to get it or you ain’t,” said Dwayne Hartwell, 57, a former grocery store worker who is on disability benefits and lives in Charleston, W.Va.

Hartwell said there was nothing Trump could have done to avoid catching the coronavirus and thus nothing anyone else could do either. He wears a mask when he goes to the store but only because it’s mandated in West Virginia. Other than that, the pandemic has not changed much about his daily life — and Trump’s diagnosis doesn’t change much about his thinking.